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Her face looked tense as she stared at me. “Aiden,” she acknowledged.
“Look, I know that we have an unpleasant past, but can we just get along until Jade’s wedding is over?” I asked huskily. “Our relationship was over a long time ago, and we’ve both moved on.”
Christ! I’m such a liar.
Honestly, I really wanted to take her and shake her until she told me why the hell she’d married another guy, a man who had evidently put her and her daughter through hell. Shit! I would have been a better choice, even though I’d been poor. At least I wasn’t part of an organized-crime ring. And I’d cared about her.
She turned her head, her eyes darting away from mine. “I’m not over it, and you know why,” she said in a sharp tone I’d never heard her utter. “But I have no problem trying to be civil for Jade’s sake. Now I have to go. I have a daughter to pick up from school.”
“What in the hell did I do?” I asked in an angry voice. “You left me, remember?”
“Obviously you have a memory problem,” she answered as she put on her lightweight jacket. “I’ll see you at the wedding.”
I gaped at her as her shapely ass marched out the door.
“What the fuck?” I said under my breath.
She has no damn reason to hate me. I didn’t replace her with another woman. She dumped me while I was out to sea.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that Skye was a realist. And she wasn’t prone to drama. At least, she hadn’t been.
Something’s not right.
I strode to the door and exited just in time to see the back of her car as she drove away.
Why the fuck do I care?
Skye Weston was nothing to me anymore.
I put my hands in the pockets of my jeans, determined that I wasn’t going to give a shit about why she seemed to blame me for our breakup.
But as I headed for my vehicle, I knew damn well I was lying to myself.
Skye had haunted me for years, so I was going to figure out exactly what she was thinking. I just wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to do it.
EPILOGUE
JADE
Three months later . . .
“Eli, are you seriously considering this project?” I asked him as I went through a prospectus on a large research facility that was less than five years old and failing.
I hadn’t yet snagged the job of my dreams, even though I’d interviewed for several over the last few months. Some of them had been out of the area, a move that Eli wasn’t particularly happy about. But he was so supportive that he offered to have dual headquarters if I was interested in any of the opportunities.
Honestly, I didn’t want to go anywhere. San Diego and Citrus Beach were home for both of us. And even though I knew he’d do anything for me, I knew he didn’t want to live on the opposite coast, and neither did I.
I was still getting used to the fact that I was marrying Eli. We spent the weekdays in his San Diego home, and the weekends in Citrus Beach. I was still helping him out in his office every day because he insisted that he needed me, but I knew it was just an excuse for both of us to work together every day.
I was getting better and better at handling some things at Stone, but I was mostly still vetting the opportunities that came up on a daily basis.
“I really don’t know,” he said nonchalantly from his desk. “I thought I’d leave that one up to you. It’s not in my area of expertise.”
I looked up from my position on the couch across the room. “You have experts,” I reminded him.
“I’d rather have you take it,” he answered.
I went back to my laptop and finished going through the information I had. Finally, I said, “It looks like they took on way too many projects, and didn’t have the money to fund them.”
It was a state-of-the-art genetics lab, but it was poorly managed.
“If I decided to buy, I think it would make an excellent facility to do genetic conservation research for wildlife,” he said.
It took me a moment to take in what Eli was really suggesting.
The facility was enormous, and could accommodate several areas of study. Since it was already built, there would be minimal changes needed, but overall it was perfect.
“The facility is amazing, but do you realize what it costs to keep a nonprofit like this going?” I asked. “It would take an enormous amount of continual fund-raising.”
He turned his head and grinned at me. “I kind of know a guy who’s pretty good at that. And I have some donors already lined up. Most of them are Sinclairs, but it wouldn’t be hard to find more.”
My mind started to spin as I thought about all the good that could be done with this facility. “I need connections worldwide for sample swaps and field research.”
“I’ll get you the numbers,” he said confidently. “And you’ll build those relationships, sweetheart. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
My eyes welled up with tears as I thought about getting back into the lab to find solutions for dwindling populations of wildlife. I’d need to build a strong team around me. But it could be done.
Never in my life had I believed I could do something that could have so much impact on conservation. And being offered the opportunity to do that made my heart feel like it was being tightened in a vise.
“So you already called in the troops to donate?” I asked softly.
“Didn’t have to,” he replied. “Your brothers and Brooke were on board immediately, and then the rest of the family got in line to sign up for it. They all know how passionate you are about conservation, and they all truly believe you’ll be doing important work. It’s a cause everybody can get behind, sweetheart. The only one who can stop it is you.”
I’d gotten in my own way many times in my life, but I wasn’t about to do it now. “I want it. I really do want it,” I said as I rose to my feet with tears trickling down my face.
I raced across the room, and Eli was already standing with his arms wide open.
He caught me, just like I knew he would.
“I love you,” I said happily and I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him as hard as I could. “How did I ever get lucky enough to be marrying somebody like you?”
“I was thinking the same thing, but for the life of me, I can’t figure it out,” he teased. “For some reason, you think I’m somebody special, and I’m not about to clue you in on the truth.”
I laughed as I punched his arm playfully. Eli had made my causes his, too, and he’d always kept my spirits up when I couldn’t find the job I wanted.
“You basically built this job for me,” I accused.
“No, I didn’t. You’re fucking brilliant, Jade. And if anybody can save some animals that are headed for extinction, it’s you. You honestly need your own facility, and it doesn’t hurt that you have a huge family of billionaires. That opportunity was there for you all along. I just wasn’t sure it was what you wanted.”
“It never really occurred to me, Eli. I’m not a big-picture thinker.”
“Only because you’ve never had the opportunity to think big,” he said huskily. “Now you do. I propose that you name it the Sinclair Institute for Wildlife Conservation.”
